


tenerezza

by psalloacappella



Series: fix me with your grace [6]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Blank Period, Cuddles but they're bittersweet, F the shinobi state, F/M, Gen, Headcanon: Sasuke does Sakura's laundry, Hurt/Comfort, SSBlankPeriod2021
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-01
Updated: 2021-02-01
Packaged: 2021-03-18 14:14:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,573
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29119539
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/psalloacappella/pseuds/psalloacappella
Summary: He keeps his comments to himself:  That she has staff for a reason, that their ex-sensei-turned-Kage works her too hard and he’d made a curt mention of it when reporting back, that perhaps someone could take the task of laundering bloody work clothes off her hands. Their responsibilities even in this delicate period they callpeacetimestill weigh heavy, principle baked into their bones.In the future, their children won’t know the world quite like this.❦For #SSBlankPeriod2021Day 6 Prompt(s): Cuddling // "Come closer."
Relationships: Haruno Sakura/Uchiha Sasuke
Series: fix me with your grace [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2125785
Comments: 8
Kudos: 95





	tenerezza

❦

A routine peacekeeping mission turns, twists, becomes mayhem.

Surgery is an intensive thing, the delicate dance of suspending chakra and soul in the void to negotiate with Death. And though it is a grim and arduous opponent with which to skirmish, Sakura more often than not emerges victorious.

Drained, though. Frayed at the edges.

It startles her to know she sometimes has an audience.

Bringing the back of hand across her forehead, she dabs at the shimmering sweat. An assistant hands her a small towel, bows, and retreats. Hitching a tired grin onto her face, she inclines her head. “Hokage-sama.”

Familiar, how he can show up jauntily in a chaotic atmosphere, a mess, and still manage to seem bemused. The political consequences of this recent skirmish unspoken between them. Hands in his pockets, he brings two fingers to his temples and flicks them toward her in an affectionate motion, channeling yesteryear. “Don’t bother with that, _Miss Haruno._ ”

Sakura wrinkles her nose at his sarcastic drawl. “That does sound weird coming from you.”

“Ah, you see? So stick with ‘sensei.’”

Despite her exhaustion, she musters up the energy to stick out her tongue.

“Mature of you,” he sighs. “But of course, well done. Exceptional, in fact.”

“You didn’t watch my whole surgery just to praise me at the end?”

Kakashi smiles, the fabric forming folds that reflect expressions innate, the way she’s interpreted them for years and knows as well as the comforting wrinkles in a beloved shirt.

There’s something knowing in the set of his chin, the easy, languid way his weight settles onto one hip, almost irreverent. 

“I’m here to tell you to go home,” he says gently. “It’s been hours. Days, really. Your capable staff will wrap up the rest.”

Perspiration, fluids; she wipes clammy hands on her coat. “Am I needed somewhere else?”

“No, I am simply invoking the powers of my grand office to send you home.”

Sakura narrows her eyes at him, swaying a bit on her feet. He’s not wrong about the rest, but she does resent his smugness in a situation where she’s unable to see the reason.

“Tell me why.” Raising her chin, she folds her arms, a stubborn root settling in for long, protracted and perhaps heated discourse.

Chuckling, his eyes twinkle in a manner just borderline risqué enough to make her frown. 

“He’s home.”

“Oh, for the love of—” Simmering rouge moving swift and fast through her cheeks, flooding out the pink from her exertion and becoming full-blown embarrassment. “Just say that first. Actually, no! _No,_ don’t — how do you—?”

“He’s already checked in, report done. Doesn’t waste time chatting with me much anymore, I’m just his old, grey sensei.” Kakashi’s sigh is wistful, aiming at charming. 

But his eyes are sharp, always watchful of everything and in particular, his loved ones. Can he see her shakes, or does he just see

_tears gathering on her lashes, the nightmares ripping her from sleep the night before, and the night before that, and —_

She’s sure she catches his self-satisfied wink as she hurries out on unsteady legs.

Weak knees, breathless, for all sorts of complicated reasons.

  
  
  
  


Plants watered. House slippers and shoes chivvied back into line, a neat row. 

The scent of him: Of earth and salt, traces of forests and faraway lands and a bite — oh, that crisp bite of smoke and fire, heady and hot, from his essence rather than his clothes. 

She finds it difficult to hold herself up, clinging to the threshold frame. Laid out across her couch he’s something of an enigma, an infamous man whose existence sparks ignorant prattle, the truth and falsehoods hoarded and passed as collective talismans. Half-informed tales of the team she adores and the man she loves. 

Handsome, of course. That aspect has never changed, never will. Vulnerable, arm resting behind his head, the placid rise and sink of his chest. Managing to come back without summons but always, forever, at the precise and needed time. 

Socked feet padding against the cold wood floor, (there was a rug, she needs a new one — knucklehead Hokage-in-the-wings spilled red wine all over it), she kneels next to the couch. Eyes following the cut edge of his jawline, the sovereign slope of his nose. And most of all, the unexpected serenity his face reflects, no furrows or creases in his expressions even in sleep.

There’s an object out of place, and its energy distracts her, draws her gaze. A basket of laundry that she assumes was gathered but unfinished, a medley of clothes he undoubtedly stripped off upon arriving tossed in with the several layers she’s been through in the last week, the sanguine fabric narrative of her journey to the void and back. 

And yet. 

On hands and knees she drags it across the floor until it's in front of her, snatches a shirt right off the top. 

Bringing it to her face, she inhales the scent of devotion so potent that the tears come swift and sudden.

“Sakura?”

Sleepy, a little hoarse, but even on awakening the concern threads his voice through. Her, crying into a shirt he’s just washed for her; she sulks inwardly, feeling stupid.

When she tries to respond, struggling to force out some chirpy greeting and loving quip, it slips into impossibility. He reaches out to her, hand starting at the top of her head to run through her clammy pink locks, then down to take her face in his fingers, a thumb gently swiping hot tears away. 

“Sakura.”

A hitch in her breath; she struggles to swallow down the sobs clawing and turbid at the back of the throat. Pressing her face into his chest, she mumbles, “Welcome home, Sasuke-kun.”

Still with his hand on her head, fingers exploring her scalp in idle and soothing trails as tracing familiar ancient etchings, as memorizing braille.

“What’s wrong?” he asks, shifting onto his side. Taps his fingers against her head, gentle, a quiet ask. 

Sakura’s face emerges pink, tearstained, with a wobbly smile that feels like a throwaway lie for a fool.

“I’m sorry! I don’t know what came over me. I’m so glad you’re—”

“Apologizing,” he interrupts. Like a quiet rumble, the purr of a prowling cat. “Ah, what did I say about that?”

“To stop it?”

Sasuke makes some noise of assent, from the throat rather than his lips. 

And he looks at her and _knows._ He’s learned, but has always intuited this habit of hers since Genin days, the way she plasters on a smile and flashes those bright teeth to disarm fools. How deeply mortifying crying feels to her in certain moments, the way it becomes an acute weakness and liability, especially regarding work. Families don’t want to see your tears, only your triumph — the way you’ve bowed to Death and danced, and depart at the end of the number with their loved one’s soul as crown and winnings. 

The problem being there’s rarely an expectation of anything less. 

Now he’s sitting up, still cradling her face in his hand. Mismatched eyes searing, searching, flickering rapidly across her face. 

“You’d better be off-duty now,” he says. “You look exhausted.”

“Oh, you sure know how to charm a girl,” Sakura sniffs. Leans into his hand and touch, raising no protests at the way his thumb continues to sweep away an endless estuary borne of things she can’t articulate. A gravity in her demeanor, at once present but faded into an unreachable inner sanctum and self. 

Instinctual, the way his fingers remain in constant contact with her skin, cheek to hair to shoulder, trailing warm down her arm and finally to her cold, shaky hand. 

Tugs her gently, indicating the space he’s made for her to sit. 

“I have to—”

“There is nothing; I’ve done it all.”

There’s nothing for her to protest, no way for her to pretend she’s fine. 

“Come closer.”

This act for her seems onerous, pulling her tired body into his lap appearing utterly spent, bereft. He keeps his comments to himself: That she has staff for a reason, that their ex-sensei-turned-Kage works her too hard and he’d made a curt mention of it when reporting back, that perhaps someone could take the task of laundering bloody work clothes off her hands. Their responsibilities even in this delicate period they call _peacetime_ still weigh heavy, principle baked into their bones. 

In the future, their children won’t know the world quite like this. 

She melts into him with her heavy head against his heart, his fingers continuing their simple repetitions in the tangle of her hair. 

Sasuke thinks of her shirt still soaking in the sink, one he labored on for a while before her return, desperately trying to lift the rubicund crimson from the white fabric.

Wondering if that one pulled through, for her sake. 

Her grip catches his attention, as if her head is spinning and she needs rooting to the earth — fingers in his shirt, head tucked under his chin. 

Sickle-cresents of leftover copper in the beds of her nails, the trials and triumph of a woman fighting back. 

She says something he doesn’t catch, a flutter, possibly _I love you._

What she does holds such importance, but he cannot imagine the cost. Pressing his mouth to her forehead, he speaks in a quiet chant in tender cadence with his fingers moving through her hair:

_I’ve got you._

_I’ve got you._

_I’ve got you._

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for the SSBlankPeriod2021 series, which is going on this week. Def peep that hashtag for sweet, sweet content from our talented fandom! 
> 
> Sasuke doing Sakura's laundry is a persistent headcanon that ends up in way too many of my fics 
> 
> I definitely set out with good, wholesome, real cuddling intentions, but characters take me where they want to go and voila we end up with bittersweet agendas. I do, though, like exploring the glossed-over grittiness of what medics in the Naruto-verse would be going through and how Sakura sees her own role, and I think we don't get to dig into that or the philosophy of it enough, (also touched on in [Perigee](https://archiveofourown.org/works/27446803)). Kakashi's just team-dad. He just is. ❤️


End file.
